The Haunting

It is hard to describe how you feel when you lose your child. Words do not really suffice. Even word pictures can fail or poetry or music. They can capture different parts of it. Little snapshots. But you would have to put all of the pieces together to begin to get a glimpse until you walk this path on your own. Then the snapshots speak in full-color, highly defined, larger than life panoramic views.

Today was just another day in our new normal life.

I went to work.
Samuel did his homeschool lessons.
Alex and Ryan played.
The homeschool computer died, literally. It wouldn't start back up after it was shut down.
And my husband struggled a bit.

I knew he was a bit tired today and a bit down but I didn't know to what extent. While Mark can be open at times, but those moments are not frequent. So I drove home at the end of my day and wondered what the evening would bring.

I walk through the door and the usual happens. Little boy voices yell out, "mommy!" My youngest runs over to me and hugs my legs. Shiloh scampers over as well, tail wagging and bark yipping as jumps up to give her greeting.

All was normal as I put away my dirty lunch containers in the kitchen sink and head to hang up my coat with dog at my heels. After hanging up my coat, I turned to find my husband standing in the doorway. Then I began to suspect that all may not be normal. Something was up.

"What's up?" I asked him. He had an odd look on his face.

He shared that he hadn't had a good day and stepped closer to me. I knew that he needed me and reached out to touch him when our youngest came between us and rattled something off. He pulled back and went back into the kitchen. I quickly dealt with our son's need, got the dog to back down and went after my husband.

I hardly got to the other side of the dining room table when he turned around and I saw tears in his eyes.

"I kept seeing Andrew's dead body over and over again today."

That caught me.

"It kept playing over and over again in my mind all day. The moment that I found his lifeless body."

His face was extremely downcast and his heart was heavy. That was obvious from his demeanor. And now my heart was sad.

I have had nightmares where there are dead babies everywhere, or seeing children dying or holding a dead baby in my arms. It's the worst when they come in succession night after night. But almost unbearable when they repeat in a night. Terrifying when you keep going into another terror after waking up from a previous one.

The most unbearable though are the memories of Andrew in his last days. And it pains me that Mark is haunted in his own way. In a way I can't imagine. In a way I will never know. And I feel so powerless to help. He and I have talked about how the memories haunt us. But Mark has shared little.

Today, he shared some more. And then he said that he had to have some time to get out of the house as the tears grew heavier in his eyes. I wasn't surprised and let him go to have some time.